


to sleep, to dream

by heartslogos



Series: i'd rather fall among the stars [3]
Category: Warframe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mostly Gen, background kore/judge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-15 04:37:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11798559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartslogos/pseuds/heartslogos
Summary: Kore does not need to listen to the rest of the data files to know what that means. That her Cephalon’s speech pattern comes from a stranger’s voice - an angry voice, a bitter voice, a dangerous low and rasping voice that curls with spiteful pride and burning resignation.It is a familiar voice that lurches against the walls of her soul. It is a voice that, once, - mouthless, wordless, nameless - she would have clung to as her own.It is the voice of a weapon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [suspectmind](https://archiveofourown.org/users/suspectmind/gifts).



It begins in what Kore calculates to be some version of Terrran summer. She finds the cephalon fragment hidden behind tall, lush grasses - a vivid white-blue among earth’s amber lights and muddy palette.

She scans it out of curiosity and Ordis exclaims with delight. Ordis thanks her for the scan as it has added to his data base. At the time, Kore was not yet awake. Kore was not yet  _Kore_.

She was still Persephone, she was still mouthless - voiceless -, and she was still many things compressed deep down in the bubbling amorphous lightless trench of her soul.

So she could not say anything back.  _You’re welcome_  or  _what is this_  or  _what does it mean._ Silence is not a choice. Silence is not an answer. It is the only thing she has to give.

Persephone does not make it a point to find these things. They are not her priority. But she does keep an eye out, just in case. If it helps Ordis, if it helps her ship improve and regain some stability, then this is good. This is beneficial. This is something she can afford to spend time and energy on.

But Persephone does not go to look at these codex entries. She sees no reason to. Ordis’ data base is his and his alone, if there is anything she needs to know, Ordis has and will filter it out through the numbers and lines of binary to give it to her when she needs it in a way that would help her most efficiently.

Persephone is efficiency. She is, still, a weapon.

She is not yet Kore and all that Kore means.

(A name. An identity. A past. A  _soul_. A heart.)

When Persephone becomes Kore, when Hades becomes Judge, when they become  _Judge and Kore -_ when Kore is a person again, a Tenno again, a  _soul_  again -

This is when things begin to shift, to change. It is no longer summer, it is years later. Well. Terran earth years later. Kore has found that she has a hard time pinning her estimates and measures of time and schedules to one particular planet. She’s been to all of them, and the planetoids and moons and asteroids in between. The sun is just another star.

By now she has learned that her ship is not the only one that’s had problems with data integrity. Years between the War and the Dream and Margulis and the Sentients and  _now_  has caused a significant decay in their Cephalons and their ships. Most Tenno are looking for lost data fragments, anything that could help their ships return to top fighting shape.

Judge’s own Cephalon suffers, too. Inactivity, mostly.

Kore comes across Judge’s own scans for his Cephalon, who’s name has not been offered to her and she has never cared to ask for what is not offered, and finds that they create entries much like the rest of the codex scans.

“You’ve never looked at them?” Judge blinks at her, shaking his head, “I - that seems like you, somehow. They’re useful, though.”

“They’re his,” She says.

Judge tilts his head, curious twist to his dark mouth, “Did he tell you that you couldn’t look?”

“No,” Kore says. But part of her holds back anyway. It seems like an intrusion. Ordis had said that they were parts of him that he had lost. That they must have gotten scattered somehow, through the drifting and the endless cloaking and the years and years of cold and desolate space.

“Well,” Judge draws the word out, coaxing her to something she isn’t sure she wants to do but is fairly certain she probably should, “Why don’t you try? If he stops you then that’s that.”

Somehow, Kore thinks, there is a flaw to this logic. But she can’t find it.

She nods her head at him, pensive, and he returns to his latest project of studying Ayatan stars and how they react to Orokin technology.

When Kore returns to her ship she waits. Ordis is always awake. Ordis is always  _watching_  her. Ordis is always keeping her safe. Secure.

There is no doing anything on this ship without Ordis knowing. Not if you’re Kore.

Ordis does not watch the other things on this ship unless they call his attention.

Kore is always in his attention.

For reasons Kore has never examined, this does not chafe against her. Ordis is safe. He is  _her Cephalon_. She is _his_  Operator.

She shakes the false memories of the Grineer Queen’s forced dream. More Orokin deceit.

Kore slowly moves up to the codex panel, Joy a silent comfort next to her, pushing her head into Kore’s palm over and over again until Kore feels more steady on her feet.

Sure enough, the entries - the scans - are all right there. Free for her to access.

Ordis says nothing when she opens the first - and she’s surprised to see it’s not code _._ It’s not a file like she thought it would be. It’s a picture. A beautiful picture of Earth. Some Grineer settlement. There’s some lines of text below it. It’s a different sort of codex entry, not describing the weaknesses and strengths and fighting patterns of an enemy, but of the innate and factual existence of a place.

Her eyes scan over the image, taking in where details blur - memories? A picture? A frame from one of Ordis’ old surveillance logs? - and sharpen. As her eyes travel over the image she hears a faint disturbance.

For a full minute Kore just thinks its the scanner behind her picking up some white noise - a signal from far away, too corrupt and warped by space and solar rays to be intelligible. But then she realizes, as her eyes rove over the image, that it isn’t that. It’s something  _here_. Buried within.

It sounds like - murmuring. Speaking.

Kore narrows her eyes, focusing harder on the sounds as they grow softer and louder. It takes her a few minutes but she pinpoints the sound from a cluster of pixels and -

She quickly dives into the file, pausing for a breath to see if Ordis will react. Nothing. Strange silence.  _Why_?

“Ordis?” Kore asks.

“Yes, Operator?” Ordis immediately answers, “Are you in need?”

“No,” She says slowly, “I’m not.”

“Are you sure? Ordis would be happy to help, you know this, Operator,” Ordis says, voice pleasant and cheerful as always, “Are you studying the codex again? You have accumulated many new files in your hunts for Simaris and with Sentinel Helios’ assistance. Are you planning new maneuvers, Operator?”

Ordis, Kore realizes, can’t see what she’s looking at. She doesn’t know how, but this is some sort of truth.

Her Cephalon would not lie to her.

“Yes,” Kore says, because she has a mouth, because she has a voice, because she is no longer just a weapon. “I’ll be here a while, I think. I’ll need some quiet, Orids, if that’s alright.”

“Of course, Operator! I will make sure all operations and tasks are conducted as silently and smoothly as possible. Should I reroute us towards a more calming planet? Neptune? Earth?”

“Europa, actually, if you can,” Kore says. Europa is across the entire solar system and should keep Ordis sufficiently preoccupied with maintaining a steady flight and a careful flight pattern. It should give her time.

“Europa it is, Operator.”

Kore returns to examining the codex scene, and slowly - carefully, delicately in the same delicate way she pulled strands of DNA out of wild Kavat blood samples to bring Joy to life - she opens what should be a simple picture file.

And it is Ordis’ voice that greets her - for a heart-pounding moment, Kore thinks she has been caught and shame burns her face, sparking all over her and fizzling like sulfur lakes and steam.

That is, until she realizes that it is not  _Ordis_. It is a recording  _of_  Ordis. Speaking to an unknown audience. Her, himself, anyone out there.

A hidden message.

A secret.

Kore’s skin is warm all over and her breath catches in her mouth, crackling with surprise and curiosity and suspicion. What did Ordis find?

She quickly flips to the next file, searches - it’s harder to pinpoint exactly where the message is hidden in this one. But she finds it and Ordis’ words scrape along the sides of her jaws, her teeth, her ears, coalescing into a single cold line that drops straight down into the condensed black of her soul.

 _What am I_?

The essential question that Kore still battles with, an ever changing answer.  _I am Kore_. I am a Tenno. I am a beast. I am a weapon. I am a tool. I am dangerous. I am an orphan. I am a murderer. I am everything, I am nothing.

A question that Kore did not ever think to consider would apply to Ordis, Ordis who knew her before she _remembered_  there was a her to know. Ordis who, without hesitation or doubt, claimed her as  _his_  Operator from the very moment she was woken from cryo. Ordis, who chose to stay with her even after the luring promise of Simaris.

The next few files strike hard, reverberating off of that cold strand of wire that’s lodged itself inside of her. She is dimly aware of the fact that Joy’s head is against her hip, curving into the soft flesh of her belly, golden eyes looking up at her with  _concern_. Her body is tense, ready - braced for the physical shock of something her mind is not braced to handle.

 _Polished and set in chains_ , Ordis says, bitter and soft and resigned in one of the hidden files and Kore’s throat closes with familiarity.

And then the next file.

Another question.

 _How many times have I done this, Ordis?_  He asks himself. Because these files, though they sometimes address her, are not  _for_  her. Not really.

Kore’s stomach churns.

It is the next file, that sends her knees crashing to the Orbiter floor and Ordis, the current Ordis -  _her_  Ordis, who has no secrets, who seems to have erased them from himself and cast them out of this ship, not knowing even when Kore found them and brought them back like the hunter she is,  _her Cephalon_  - responds with soft worry.

“Operator? Have you been standing too long? Do you want me to dim the lighting? Will you sleep?”

“No,” Kore croaks, hands numb, legs number, everything but her mind numb as it races with heat and steam and hissing vitriol that’s been poured into her for years - always outward but now spiraling out of control and with nothing to point at.

That was not Ordis’ voice in the file. That was a man’s voice, a stranger’s voice. But the pattern of speech, the way the vowels and the consonants clip and flow together. It was  _her Cephalon_.

Kore does not need to listen to the rest of the data files to know what that means. That her Cephalon’s speech pattern comes from a stranger’s voice - an angry voice, a bitter voice, a dangerous low and rasping voice that curls with spiteful pride and burning resignation.

It is a familiar voice that lurches against the walls of her soul. It is a voice that, once, - mouthless, wordless, nameless - she would have clung to as her own.

It is the voice of a weapon.

“No,” Kore repeats, forcing her body to move as she wills it, dragging herself back into standing.

“Operator, your temperature is increasing and your Void signature is - “

“It’s fine,” Kore lies through her teeth, pulse racing in her palms as she flips to the next file and searches for the anomaly of sound and secrets, “Keep going. It’s fine. Just - just fly.”

The voice in the files talks and Kore’s mind flashes to the Grineer Queens, the ruined halls of memory. And further back.

Her own gilded combs, not hers. The ones used on her. Her mind flashes back to the eyes that were always on her, always watching. Her mind returns her to the hallways of the Orokin, to Ballas.

“ _Operator!_ ” Ordis’ voice shocks her back from Ballas, from this Voice in the codex, from a thousand dark things threatening to rise in her soul. “ _Operator, your vital signs are all over!_  I’m flagging Tenno Judge for assistance - “

A protocol that Ordis has learned and she hadn’t thought to train out of him; one that is mirrored by Judge’s own cephalon. Kore takes care of Judge. Judge takes care of Kore.

When they refuse to listen to their Cephalons - who can’t force them to do anything - the Cephalons call in someone who can.

“No!” Kore yells, “ _Do not call Judge.”_

Her throat and her heart and the steam inside of her hisses, contracts, coils. It slides around and knots itself around this grain of  _knowledge_  that she has uncovered. It is not Judge’s. He can’t know. It is not  _his_  Cephalon that hid these messages.

Kore should never have done this.

But now that she has started she cannot stop and she refuses to bring anyone into this. Not the Lotus, not Judge, no one.

Kore hesitates - she has the power to stop Ordis. He must obey her, after all. She’s his Operator.

Her body and mind recoil hard against the thought of controlling anyone, anything else. To absolutely forbid, and command.

But Judge must not know. And if Kore cannot control -  _will not control -_ then she must lie.

Lies taste bitter in her mouth and fit around her teeth awkwardly, gangly and unnatural. Especially to her own Cephalon.

“It’s a private matter, Ordis,” Which is not a lie. “I want to see if I can resolve this myself. It’s something very important to me.”

Ordis relents - easily, simply,  _devotedly_  and Kore’s mind rolls with unease and unsteadiness.

“Just - just keep us on track to Europa,” Kore says, pressing her fists to her face. Breathe.

“Operator,” Ordis’ voice is gentle, wavering and cracking as it always is - but gentle in the way that Ordis has always been with her, even when the cracks of violence and scorn and scathing distaste seared through the surface. “We have been in standard orbit around Europa for two hours.”

Kore’s throat clicks with surprise. How long was she in the files?

_The files -_

Kore doesn’t have enough to complete the messages. She has - she has partial scans of the rest of them, but some are missing entirely. She can vaguely guess the pieces she’s missing and from where based on the pattern of emergence.

The message starts on Earth and slowly spirals outward - Mercury, Venus, Mars, and on and on and on.

Lucky for her, the next piece she’s missing looks like it’s from Jupiter.

 _Ordan Karris_ , Kore thinks as she pushes to her feet, Joy stirring with her,  _I am coming for you_.  _I am coming for your secrets, your confession, your transformation._

Kore is a hunter. Trained by the best of the Orokin.

Once she starts she cannot stop, no matter how much she wants to. She wasn’t like this before, she knows. Before the Zariman’s Void jump gone wrong, before the events that changed her into a Tenno. Even when she was an Excalibur, an Ember - a child in Margulis’ golden and then blackened gaze - she was not a hunter.

Not until Ballas. Not until Saryn.

Kore is a hunter.

The trail is placed. She has no choice but to follow it.

It is not a question of if she dares to disturb the universe, Kore lives in the center of a ripple. It is, rather, a question of whether Kore will survive the disturbance.

Ordan Karris, Kore repeats in her head over and over and over as she slowly walks towards her arsenal - fully aware of how tired she is, of how unsteady her mind and soul and body feel, fully aware of how fundamentally off kilter she is and how this  _will_  affect her performance - and brings up Titania. She’ll have to move through Jupiter fast, hit as many outposts as quickly and thoroughly as she can to find the data fragments.  _Ordan Karris, you are the pearl in my muscle, the sand between my teeth._

Ordis is her Cephalon - planting these messages, saying to turn back -

Wouldn’t he have known? Shouldn’t he have known?

Kore doesn’t turn back. Kore turns  _gold_.

Kore closes her eyes and focuses, allowing herself to sink into Titania - “Adjust trajectory and prepare a transport to Jupiter, Ordis.”

“Jupiter? But Operator, you have been conscious for over twenty hours, shouldn’t you take some time for a REM cycle?”

“Jupiter,” Kore repeats softly, Titania’s razor-flies singing through the air around her, agitated and fast and golden-orange, “Take me to Jupiter, Ordis.”

Take me to Ordan Karris. Take me to your secrets.

Kore doesn’t bother to count the time it takes her to hunt down and scan - meticulously, feverishly, furiously, desperately - the rest of the fragments to complete the codex.

Regardless of the number,  _it’s too long_. Too slow. Not fast enough, not good enough. There are answers that she needs. Answers that Ordis has hidden. Answers Ordis should have realized she would have hunted down to the edges of the damned  _galaxy_  if she had to.

But this, the repeated drops and the fighting and the hunting and the endless cycle of violence and jolts of transference, is familiar. It is something she knows how to do, it is something she knows she excels at. It is something she was crafted to love and enjoy - through force and manipulation and chemicals and resignation.

Somewhere around Uranus, her transference signals begin to fluctuate and dip, dropping low even when she switches out to Ember and Saryn - low as if she were in Rhino or Hydroid. She can still fight, she can still hunt, but her teeth are blunted and it takes her longer than she likes.

Frustration builds in the back of her throat. Scorching.

Kore is tempted to look over what she’s obtained already, but the frustration of not having the complete messages drives her onto the next planet, the next asteroid, the next moon. She can’t stop until it is complete. Until she has the full secret and everything she knows it will mean.

By Eris, her transference levels have dropped in  _every_  frame until they’re Nyx levels of low. Time and drops drag by impossibly slowly - the garrisons and forts and research bases she could clear in her sleep  _before_  this leave her ragged and exhausted and ready to vomit with how everything hurts.

Her Sentinels, her Kubrow, her Kavat, her Charger even - have taken to avoiding her. Staying out of her way. Clever creatures.

But then again, Kore made them for her. They know her moods, they know what she needs.

Even Helminth, ever contradictory and spiteful and devout Helminth, is silent when she goes in for treatment in between her drops - between one planet and the next. Not a single whisper or disturbance when she enters, lies down and drops off into REM for a few hours. Apparently, not even Helminth is going to test her right now.

Good.

Ordis, she knows, is worried.

She’s surprised he hasn’t hailed the Lotus, or Judge. But she told him not to. And Ordis is, in his own way, ever faithful, ever loyal.

By the time Kore’s completed every single damned scan, certain that she’s completed the message, she’s running on empty.

All of her screams, shouts, howls, and begs to finish the message  _now_. To rip this secret open and let it burst out and be  _known_.

Let Ordan Karris be known to her, to Ordis, once more.

But even above that, Kore knows she will crash hard and it will only foul her mood more if she does. So she eats, mechanically and slowly to ease her pained stomach, a full ration for the first time in - a long time. She drinks water packets slowly. It takes her two slow hours to finish.

If she throws up, she tells herself, she’ll have to start over.

“I’m going to sleep,” Kore announces to Ordis, her warframes, her Sentinels, her companions, Helminth. It’s almost as if the entire ship breathes a sigh of relief. “Can you block any incoming transmissions?”

“Of course, Operator!” Ordis jumps eagerly to this, no doubt delighted that Kore’s about to do something he’s been trying to be subtle about getting her to do for the past how many weeks.

The Orbiter’s lights all immediately dim, even the emergency lights which is really - well. Kore’s not going anywhere, so…

Ordis cuts the radio chatter, and all the ships functions seem to quiet, slow, fade away.

“Wake me up if there’s an emergency,” She says, eyes already closing - stinging - and she sleeps.

She dreams.

In her dream, Ordan Karris’ voice repeats his own dream to her. The moon of bones. A man-shaped figure, vague except for the red sword he holds, standing on its surface looking up at her.

_The gravity-sum of genocides I’ve made in their name._

Kore, from her side, is sunk and still sinking into her own moon of bodies. Not nearly so neat as bone dust. Flesh, still writhing and hot, putrid and stinking, still moving in death throes. Her dead are still fresh, after all. And still growing.

Her own pile of dead burns around her - poison gas, flames, electricity, acid. The tools of her temper and trade. The heat cracks the skin of her face as she watches Ordan Karris sink.

To sleep, to dream - to forget.

Isn’t that the rub?

Kore wakes up, still bone tired but better.

“Hello, Operator! You have had almost six full REM cycles! How are you feeling? Shall I enter us into Orbit around Earth? We are currently drifting outside of derelict territory.”

“Earth is good,” Kore says, getting up and stretching, grimacing at the pull.

Stretches. Checking herself over - checking her warframes over, checking on her Sentinels and companions. Take care of that first before the rest. Otherwise she’ll never get to it.

  
Eat something.

Kore does this, firmly clamping down on the building need in her that only grows the more awake she becomes. The hunt, the pursuit - almost over and within the reach of her bite.

But there are things she must do. This first. Or it will never happen.

Kore forces herself to eat slowly, half a ration packet and two entire water packets. She breathes, stretches, she changes her clothes, grimacing at the feeling across her entire body as she peels herself out of her suit.

By the time she’s done attending to herself and the rest of her ship, the entirety of her insides are burning.

In comfortable clothes Kore moves to stand in front of the codex module again.

She dives in.

The next messages she parses through rattle her even further - unexpected in their own way, the violence and the sorrow and the bitter end. Parts of her burn warm to listen. Proud, even. Respectful and awe-inspired.

It took all of the Tenno to destroy the Orokin, all of them guided and conducted by the Lotus. Ordan Karris did it by himself without urging.

But the messages take a -  _they take a turn_  that her mind should have seen coming, that her soul should have remembered the feel of.

Neptune’s message shakes and pulls the cold string that started this all taught inside of her, and releases it so it hums and vibrates and buzzes through every bone in her.

 _Ballas_  her mind snarls. Ballas. Always  _Ballas_ , even here - in the memories of her Cephalon, in Ordan Karris. Even here he slides his golden way in.

Ordan Karris, Kore’s mind whispers, is  _too close_.

Her soul responds back, mimicking Ordan Karris’ voice from the first messages,  _A torn, ugly face looks on. My reflection_.

Kore’s Void scars prickle.

 _I close my eyes to die just once_ , Ordan Karris sighs. But he does not die. He doesn’t.

Ballas, the familiar heat and hate rises up in her, easier to manage now that she can put a target to it. A familiar target, even.

Ordan Karris’ voice changes into Ordis’ - lighter, but the same in its own cadence, just lighter. Freer. Softer. Somehow less dense.

 _My hating, murderous shards tremble and plummet. I feel cool and bright and happy_.

Kore’s throat and eyes prickle to join her scars as Ordis, in the messages addresses her again. Familiar - a strange mirror of steel and data instead of flesh and bone and blood.

The Orokin took Ordan Karris and made him into a Cephalon, a reprogrammable tool. The Orokin took Kore and made her into Persephone, a moldable weapon. It is  _too familiar_. It is too achingly familiar.

Ballas, the chains, the imprisonment, the grooming, the eyes that watch and follow and the hands that correct and  _fix_  and tamper.

Kore wishes she hadn’t eaten.

At least, she thinks, at least they could not take the shards of me away.

 _They took your name_.

On the second Pluto file, Kore is struck with a powerful wave of realization as Ordis details his fusion with the Orbiter. This entire ship -  _him_. She had known that, but somehow this way of Ordis phrasing it - makes it hit harder. The knowledge layers itself over her mind, inescapable.

But then the next message rattles, shakes, yanks out bloodied and whole - something else inescapable.

 _He says, “This is your Operator, who you love_.”

Even as Ordis’ message plays, Kore’s mind throws her, hurtles her back, to a distant time and place. Not quite the same memory, but similar.

 _And I see the metal gleam of their armor, the flawless power of their frame. Through the glass I see a roaring, radiant fire for their heart. He says, It must never go out. It was the first time I ever felt…love_.

During the later stages of the war, once the Sentients were on the retreat and the Orokin realized they would have to start mobilizing their Tenno from something other than their outposts and garrisons, they were all transferred to ships. Orbiters. Each with their own Cephalon to relay messages between the Orokin and the Tenno they commanded.

Controllers.

Persephone had entered transference with a temporary warframe, and was sent to train with the other Tenno in the proving grounds. Train is not the right word. It was more of an exhibition, a show.

They were not allowed to hurt each other. It was not even play. It was something for the Orokin to look at, to fawn over. To show them how good their toys, their pets, their creations were. An amusement.

The Executors did not want the Tenno to know where the Orbiters were being made, where they were being launched from. The Orbiters would launch with their sleeping Tenno and by the time the Tenno were instructed to return to their own bodies they would be entire lightyears away from where their ships launched.

When Kore woke, she was in what she now knows to be  _her_  transference chamber - but not in the chair. In the liquid below, in a crypo-pod.

And Ordis was there. Ordis spoke to her, gentle and excited and adoring. Ordis was already with her.

 _This is your Cephalon_ , Ballas had told her through transmission.  _Ordis. He is special, Tenno. He will keep you sharp, he will keep you battle ready. I made sure to have him assigned to you_.

Ordis’ recording whispers through her,  _love_.

Kore’s hands are not shaking because she is no longer in control of her body. She is still.

Her only choice is to move forward. This is not the end.

 _You held a scarlet blade, Operator, and I wanted to laugh_. Kore wants to be sick, honestly. The similarity, the parallels, the lines drawn between them that bind them to one another. They all wrap around her throat and squeezes.

_I am your loving dog, your doctor, your wet nurse._

Her eyes sting and memories flicker in her mind. Then and now, before and after. During and after the Orokin. Everything they had been through together. Everywhere they’ve been, everything they’ve done.

_I was going to wait for you, forever._

Almost at the end of the transmissions, now. Kore’s eyes can’t focus on anything. She can’t even close them. She is no longer in control of her own breathing. Distantly, even though she knows it must be very close, she hears Ordis’ alarm. His concern.

His worry.

 _And should you return, I would not want you to know that angry part of me. I needed to hide the Beast of Bones from you, Operator. I began to peel the shards, hiding them in the other bits of memory_.

A sound wedges its way between each slat of her ribs, working its way up, through her spine and the delicate layers of soft tissue that comprise her chest and throat, still choked by the smoke and mirrors of Ballas and his  _planning_.

Ordis, beyond this message, is signaling alerts - hailing Judge, the Lotus.

Kore, tunneling deeper into the sound of Ordis - the message, the secret - and his soft, sweet sorrow, voice a mixture of the Ordis of now and the Ordan Karris of then - moves on to the final message.

 _Angry. I imagine myself hurting you and that does it. The pain of it cracks me open again. I watch tiny glittering fragments fall into the pit. I am happy again_.

Kore remembers, early on - Ordis’ strange comments. The violence, the distortion to his voice. The way he would suddenly flip between calm if enthusiastic to displeased and violent - implied but never acted upon.

Kore rips herself away from the codex module, everything building inside of her. A thousand ripples echoing through the universe.

She runs. She stops running. She turns around, breathing loud and harsh in her ears - the golden buzz of energy building up underneath her skin, hot and eating at her. She looks around, eyes roaming and not seeing.

Everywhere she looks - Ordis. It’s all Ordis.

Kore screams, a cracked and strangled sound that’s weak in her pounding ears and not nearly enough to let out the volcanic eruption threatening to burst in her chest.

She screams and her hands ball into fists by her face and she almost strikes out - lashes against a wall, a console, the floor, the ceiling. But her mind snaps her back into herself.

The entire ship is Ordis.

He breathes and the air in the filtration system is his lungs, the water and hydraulics that cool the engines is his throat.

Kore screams again and again, each scream weaker than the last as her throat closes, Ordis well and truly alarmed all around her - machines uselessly whirring to life and lights moving from full to dim as he tries to find a way to soothe her.

No hands. No body.

But something else - something -

Kore sinks to the floor, and -

She cries. For the first time in as long as she can remember, as long as she is able to remember, she cries. It’s hot, it burns, it catches over the ridges of scars along her face. She can barely breathe through her clenched teeth.

Kore cries because screaming isn’t enough and she can’t explode, she can’t lash out. Not here.

She wants to scream and to curse Ballas. She wants to scream forgiveness. She wants to swear at Ordis for hiding this from her, for ever thinking for a moment that she wouldn’t want him, wouldn’t want to see him as he is. For breaking himself like this. For  _her_.

Void and stars and flames -  _for her_. All of this for  _her_.

Kore’s teeth clench hard enough that her jaw aches and her head hits against the Orbiter floor, body shaking with the twin desires of throwing up and sobbing.

All of this. Because  _he’s her Cephalon_.

Kore, too, wants to laugh. To scream.

But there is nothing but tears and Ordan Karris’ voice whispering in her ear,  _Truth leads to pain. Ignorance brings relief._

Kore could never stand for ignorance, though. Is there, in her life, a single truth that has not led her to pain? Is this what she was made for?

 _Answers depend on who asks_ , Ordan Karris’ voice echoes in her head as she gasps in air through her teeth, high pitched and keening with horror and disgust and hate and loathing.

 _And if I asked_ , Kore thinks,  _and if I asked_?

Do you hate me, Ordis? Do you hate what they made you into - for me?  _Do you still want to kill me_?

 _I have killed immortals_ , Ordan Karris’ voice answers her, in her head.

Kore curls up on the floor, small and in pain that she can’t let out, hands grabbing at her hair as she forces herself to curl up tighter - as if she could stop touching Ordis altogether if she just squeezed herself small enough - and burns.


	2. Chapter 2

Judge is, of course, concerned for Kore. He hasn’t seen her in almost a month, and his attempts at contact have been rebuffed by her Cephalon. For a few brief moments in the beginning of Kore’s absence, he considered finding and boarding her ship by force.

But he’s long since learned his lesson about that.

He asks the Lotus if she’s had any contact with Kore. Perhaps she’d sent Kore out on some difficult missions, missions that Kore decided - for whatever reason - she didn’t need to bring Judge along for.

They have had, each, their own fair of solo deployments.

But even the Lotus, all knowing and constantly present Lotus, doesn’t know what Kore is doing. Or where. Or  _why_. It’s on the tip of his tongue to needle her,  _are you sure, Natah?_

Judge does not say this, though parts of him want to. Spiteful and scorned parts of him, blackened edges. He doesn’t say this.

The Lotus has been trying so hard to keep peace with them. He’s faintly inclined to allow it. To permit it.

None of the Steel Meridian or Red Veil syndicate members have had contact with her, either. Judge even makes an attempt with Suda and Simaris, both of them turning up nothing for him. He has a thought that perhaps Kore had told them all to hide her from him, to turn him away. But the syndicates seem surprised that he doesn’t know, either.

Judge considers that perhaps Kore is upset with him over something. But this isn’t like Kore to avoid him entirely. Kore has avoided him before - after he woke from the Dream, for one - but she always made sure her reasons were clear.

Kore despises opaqueness when it comes to anger and vengeance and sorrow and retribution and punishment. She would have let him know. Verbally or with some sort of pointed gesture.

She would not leave him alone in the dark.

Kore has never left him alone, or in the dark. For all that his Untouchable can be indifferent, she has never been needlessly cruel.

Judge retreats to his Orbiter, he watches his Ayatan sculptures move, he counts hours and rotations. He goes on drops and he partners up with other Tenno for missions - the entire time feeling Kore’s absence at his side.

“Scylla,” Judge says and his Cephalon wakes, “Hail Kore, please.”

“Yes, Operator,” Cephalon Scylla replies, and then moments later, “No response, Operator. Her orbiter is present and shows no signs of distress or recent attack, but does not answer our communication request. Should I try again?”

“Yes,” Judge says, “Please, Scylla. Could you get her Cephalon to talk to us, at least?”

“I will do my best, Operator,” Scylla replies, voice glitching and dragging out the word  _Operator_  into three extra syllables around the  _o_.

It tends to happen when Scylla thinks he is distressed or displeased.

Judge fiddles with an Ayatan star between his fingers, holding his arm up to keep it away from Midas’ mouth when the pup comes to investigate after playing around and menacing Helminth.

“I have Tenno Kore’s Cephalon, Operator,” Syclla says, soft tones of excitement in her digital voice, “I have succeeded.”

“Thank you, Scylla, please patch him through,” Judge says, relief he didn’t know would come loosening his shoulders and throat. He licks his lips, waiting and there’s a soft crackle as a new frequency joins his.

“Tenno Judge,” Kore’s Cephalon sounds faintly annoyed, voice warbling in that peculiar way it does through various frequencies of sound and vocal range, “I have told you that my Operator is not available - “

“I know, I know,” Judge says, pushing Midas’ back down until the puppy is on the floor, stubby legs splayed and stump of a tail wagging - more like his entire rump is wagging and the tail is along for the ride. “Can you at least - can you at least share your coordinates? I promise I won’t follow or dispatch to join her or anything. Just for my peace of mind. Please?”

Kore’s Cephalon hums, a trill that sounds like running your hand through static.

“Very well, Tenno Judge,” the Cephalon concedes grudgingly - and audibly grudgingly, too. A true fit for Kore, Judge can't help but think. They even sound similar. “I will share the orbiter’s navigation log with you. If it would keep you from disturbing my Operator. My Operator is very hard at work and should not be interrupted! She is doing incredibly important work, Tenno!”

Judge nods, “I’m sure she is, Cephalon. Thank you.”

Ordis does the equivalent of a mechanical sniff, “You are welcome, Tenno Judge. I am closing the connection.”

The line clicks closed and moments later Scylla pulls up a view of Kore’s logs - and Judge’s eyes bulge.

Kore’s been hitting every outpost - active and not - in the system for the past  _two weeks straight_. It can’t be right - but even Kore’s Cephalon, as liable to glitch as he is, wouldn’t be able to glitch like this.

Judge scrolls to the beginning of Kore’s absence, and traces her path. Europa to Jupiter, Jupiter to Neptune and on to Uranus where she currently still is and -  _Void_.

The times between her drops and retrieval are all over the place. They started off short and frequent at Jupiter and grow increasingly longer as she hits Uranus. It makes sense.

Even Kore, Persephone and Saryn pilot, would be suffering some sort of strain after this many deployments. And it looks like she’s doing them back to back - almost eight at a time. Based on this she can’t even be getting a full REM cycle in between.

Judge guesses that if Kore is resting between planets and outposts, she’s not sleeping at all.

 _Void and stars and flames_.

His pulse pounds in his palms but he promised. And he figures that Kore wouldn’t take kindly to him interrupting her - whatever it is she’s doing.

He can only watch.

Judge continues his solo deployments, but begins to arrange them so that he’s vaguely close to her - just in case. But he doesn’t seek her out.

Kore can handle it, he convinces himself even as her deployments get longer with even shorter rests in between. She’s started jumping with the rails to decrease flight time.

She can handle it, Judge tells himself even if it sounds hollow to his own ears, Kore can take care of herself. Kore is stronger than anything.

Kore is golden - rising from ashes and destruction over and over again.

He tells himself this, and the lie - flimsy and transparent as it is - is all he has that keeps him from rushing in after her, grabbing her by the hands and hauling her back to her ship for a real REM cycle, food, water,  _rest_ , and a damned explanation.

Is this how Kore feels when he rushes into things? Becomes obsessed with a mystery? At least he’s left notes or clues before. Not this sudden and complete absence.

The lie falls and everything - Kore, even - comes to a complete and screeching halt with a single alarm.

Judge had thought she was done, finally slowing down - her orbiter’s logs hadn’t changed since she returned to Earth’s orbit and she hadn’t had a single deployment in almost twenty hours.

He thinks that he’ll give himself and her about three Earth rotations until he tries hailing her again.

But his ships alarms blare as Scylla announces an emergency transmission from Kore’s Cephalon - pinging both himself and the Lotus.

“Patch through,” Judge commands, jerking out of half-sleep and already pushing to his feet, ready to deploy -

“ _\- immediate assistance needed! Lotus? Tenno Judge? Respond! Please! My Operator is in dire need of immediate assistance! Can anyone hear me? Operator! Operator!_  - “

“I’m here,” Judge says, “Cephalon -  _status_?”

“You must come,” the Cephalon says, voice high with worry and fear, “Tenno Judge, please - come - I’ve sent the coordinates, you must come aboard. She needs - she needs something. Someone.  _Anyone_.”

Judge gestures and Scylla pulls up the coordinates on a hologram next to him and he nods, “Get us there.”

“Yes, Operator!”

“What’s happening, Cephalon? What am I walking into?” Judge says as Scylla slowly orients their ship to intercept Kore’s.

“Something - something’s  _hurt her_ ,” The Cephalon’s voice does that odd, deep, unnerving dip it will sometimes do when the Cephalon is displeased. Whenever that happens the hair on the back of Judge’s neck and arms stands up. “She is not responding. Her Void signature is - it’s rising and it’s entering dangerous levels of containment. If it raises any higher there is danger that she will cause combustion or damage to the orbiter’s interior.”

“She’s being violent?”

“No!” The Cephalon’s voice cracks and Judge winces, “She isn’t  _moving_. She’s - she’s on the ground. Holding herself. Something is  _hurting her_.”

The words  _hurting her_  return to that deep, cracking voice.

“ _What_? Did she - is she sick? Did she at something wrong? Is it because of the deployments?”

“I cannot get an accurate read on her biometrics, Tenno,” The Cephalon replies, frustration cracking through every word, “She was fine when she returned from her last deployment. She has been entering normal sleep and REM cycles and eating as well. She has tended to all of her injuries. Something else - there must be something else - she is non responsive -  _hurry_.”

“Tenno Kore’s ship is within sight, Operator, I am preparing the airlock for the connection,” Scylla says softly and Judge moves towards the interior of his ship without hesitation.

“Connection complete in five minutes and counting,” Scylla informs him.

“Preparing to accept,” Kore’s Cephalon responds before cutting the transmission.

Despite Kore’s Cephalon’s warning and attempt at briefing, Judge is not prepared for the wreckage of Kore’s ship.

He feels the  _heat_  of her from two whole floors down, and as he hurries up to the main observation deck of her orbiter, he feels the eyes of her companions, huddled away and silent.

By the time he reaches the main observation deck he feels like he’s sweating, and every inhale is like  _swallowing_  something humid and alive. Judge’s eyes squint through the heat waves in the air and he has to shield his eyes, turn away from her - huddled on the floor.

Kore’s Void energy is naturally an almost turquoise green-blue. But when it sparks? When it lights like flint striking? It turns  _golden_. When it begins to burn and heat it turns  _gold_ , bright. It’s like staring into a fire, the hottest blue within easing out into golden red.

Kore’s body is wrapped in a thick sheet of this turquoise blue, a star, but it flickers with ribbons of yellow that spiral outward. Hot and hissing.

“Kore,” Judge says to her, gently - carefully not to startle her. Because despite the heat and the light, it is deadly silent.

Kore’s body jerks and her head, on the floor, burrows and mashes into the ground, her fists about her head.

“Kore, I’m coming closer,” Judge says, getting not his hands and knees, shedding his gloves and and stretching his arm across the floor once he’s within reach. He doesn’t touch her, but he puts his hand down on the floor next to her, coating himself in his own Void energy - brilliant magenta and vivid pink - to defend his bare skin against hers.

Kore turns away from the hand.

“I need you to talk to me, Kore,” Judge says, watching her shoulders bunch. He releases his own energy in small increments - enough to protect himself and to shield his eyes, enough to get close. It is a dangerous line.

He’s not in full control and Kore seems to have lost all of hers.

“Kore, your ship is taking significant damage. I need you to talk to me - something, anything. Your ship cant handle much more of this.”

Kore flinches, a full body flinch and Judge catches a glimpse of her face - jaw clenched, eyes red and puffy like she's been crying an impossible thought that blanks Judge’s mind for a few precious and important seconds, and her entire face flushed.

But Kore makes a feeble attempt at drawing her Void energy in - and for a moment the heat falters, but then the gold sparks up again and Judge has to quickly raise a shield to protect himself from the waves of heat.

“What do you  _need_?” Judge asks her, forcing calmness into his voice with everything he has.

Kore shakes her head and with great effort she opens her mouth.

“Away,” She croaks out, “ _I need -_ “

“I can’t leave you like this,” Judge says.

She shakes her head, “ _Away_.”

“From what, Kore?”

Kore weakly hits her hand against the Orbiter floor.

“Off the ship?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Kore hisses.

“Cephalon, prepare a drop - Kore, can you make it to transference?”

Kore shakes her head, eyes gritting shut, “Drop the frame. I’ll teleport through.”

“Anywhere in specific?”

“Alone,” Kore says, “ _Now_.”

Judge nods, standing, “Cephalon?”

“Yes, Tenno Judge?” Kore’s Cephalon responds immediately, “What did she say? My Operator’s Void energy is too dense - it is interfering with my sensors. Is she alright?”

“Prepare a drop, Cephalon, to Earth. Somewhere abandoned - relatively free of bio signatures,” Judge says. Void energy negates sensors? Interesting. “Kore needs to get off this ship and - I think, lose some steam.”

“Understood, Tenno Judge. Oh,  _Operator- “_  the Cephalon sighs and Judge heads back to his own ship, each step away from Kore’s curled up body a dangerous pang of worry and dread in his chest.

Judge drops first and finds Kore’s Saryn - already waiting, but inactive.

Judge leaves Mesa and carefully says, “Kore, I’m here.”

Kore bursts out of Saryn’s skin, bare foot, under dressed, and  _raging gold over harsh blue_.

Kore’s first real sound as she pries her own jaws open is a scream that causes birds to scatter.

Judge stays well out of her way as the Void energy bursts out of her, charring and crystallizing the ground around her in a two yard radius. Kore, thankfully, has enough of herself in her to move this away from him and their frames.

She is a pillar of gold over blue as she rages, turning everything around them to ash, pulverizing stone and shredding solid ground, scarring trees, and reducing foliage to nothing.

It feels like hours, but is more like ten or so minutes of Kore’s rage, before she slowly extinguishes, steam and the smell of ozone and ash.

Kore’s feet lower to the still crackling, still  _molten_  ground as she falls to her knees, spent.

Judge approaches slowly, careful as he walks over ash.

“Can you talk to me, Kore?” Judge says, stopping about two feet from her.

Kore’s shoulders heave and her skin is shining with sweat, her hair is plastered to the nape of her neck.

He’s never seen defeat on her before. It makes her unfamiliar. Not soft, but not jagged. Strange. But not a stranger.

Kore raises her hand into a weak fist, “The damned fragments, Judge. It was the damned - the Void and Orokin damned codex fragments.”

“The what?” Judge blinks, puzzled.

“ _The fucking fragments_ ,” Kore snaps, throwing a blue ball of energy - significantly smaller than her earlier display, weaker - and it crashes against a tree, shaking it and causing a few broken branches to crash to the floor. “It was - the -  _in the codex. The ones we’ve been using to repair our Cephalons_.”

Kore turns her head to the sky and  _screams_ , a hoarse and pained sound.

“Cut your transmission,” Kore says, eyes sharp as she turns onto him, “Cut it.”

Judge cuts it immediately. This is not the time to question her.

Kore sways as she stands, pacing, now, pushing herself into the momentum like she can’t be still. With all of Earth’s gold and green and blue around her, she still looks like a caged thing. But by  _what_?

“Tell me everything,” Judge says.

“I can’t, it’s - it’s  _private_ ,” Kore’s face twists, shame and regret, “I shouldn’t have looked at the files. I shouldn’t have - they were his memories, Judge. I shouldn’t have looked but I did and I thought - I thought he would stop me but he didn’t and then it was -  _It was all my fault, Judge. I did this._ ”

Kore throws her arm up towards the sky, “ _He is my fault. I did that._ ”

“Did  _what_?”

Kore’s frustrated cry through her teeth is accompanied by a burst of energy that faintly hits against Judge’s skin, weak and diluted.

“ _I killed him_ ,” Kore says, eyes not meeting his, eyes on the blue, blue sky. “Ordis -  _Ordan_   - “

“ _Who_?”

“My fucking  _Cephalon, Judge,”_ Kore snaps, “Cephalon Ordis -  _Ordan Karris_.”

“What do you mean you  _killed your Cephalon_? They’re Cephalons,  _data_ , they can’t be  _killed_  they’re not - “

Judge dodges Kore’s next bolt of energy, though it’s so weak it disperses a few feet behind him, nothing but hot air.

“Don’t say it,” Kore says, voice shaking, body trembling, “ _Don’t you say he’s not alive._ ”

Judge keeps his mouth closed.

Kore resumes her pacing, “There were - there were messages in there. Memories. Real memories. Of how - of  _Ordan Karris_. Ordis. His memories. And - about how - how he came to be my Cephalon and fucking - fucking  _Executor Ballas -_ “

Kore’s voice clicks around the name like flint.

“And  _me - “_ Her voice trembles, weakens, falters. For a moment so does her pacing. Lost.

“What about you, Kore? I don’t understand. I need you to explain it to me,” Judge says, trying to puzzle together how these pieces fit. Her Cephalon - Ordis, Ordan Karris? A portmanteau? A nickname? - Ballas, Kore. A murder.

“I killed him,” Kore’s voice shatters in on itself, falling, “I killed Ordan Karris.”

“And  _who is Ordan Karris_?”

“He’s - he’s - “ Kore seems to freeze, and then it all fades out of her, “Judge, my Cephalon was a  _person_. He was  _alive_. He was - blood and bone.”

They know this, though. Cephalons were people once. Suda was an Archimedean for one. He knows he’s told her about that.

“Yes,” Judge says, trying to encourage her to go on but Kore just shakes herself violently.

“He was a  _person_ ,” Kore whispers, “He was a person, Judge. And they took that from him -  _because of me_.”

“How is it because of you?”

Kore’s fists open and close, unable to help her here.

“Because - because they made him  _mine_. Ballas made him  _mine_. He didn’t -  _he wanted to be free_ ,” Kore’s voice cracks, shivers, “ _He wanted it to end, but instead he was made to be mine and they took everything from him. Because of me_.”

“I still don’t understand,” Judge thinks he can get a vague picture of what Kore is trying to say. “He was unwilling to be a Cephalon?”

“ _Yes!_ ” Kore exclaims, “ _He didn’t want this, Judge_. He didn’t want  _me_.” Kore gestures at herself, then back at the sky, “He didn’t want me, he still doesn’t want me.  _But they made him anyway and now he - he’s broken_. He’s doing it to himself because - because  _Ballas told him he had to_. To protect me. Even when he didn’t want to.”

Kore’s skin is ashen as she looks at him, a strange colorless version of herself - and Judge realizes with alarm that she’s crying.

He moves towards her and she quickly moves back stumbling a little - wild eyed.

He holds his arms out towards her but she ignores him, turning away.

“But that doesn’t mean you killed him, Kore.”

“Yes, it does,” Kore protests, “He was - he was just imprisoned before. Alone, left alone. But then - then they turned him into a Cephalon. For me. Under Ballas’ orders. They - they  _remade him, for me._  They went into him and carved him out and destroyed parts of him and told him that - “

Kore’s eyes squeeze shut.

“ _He had to protect me._  No matter what. And he  _obeyed_ ,” Kore’s voice chokes out and Judge slowly moves closer to her, stopping about a foot away. He holds his hands out but Kore doesn’t take them. He keeps them out anyway.

“They forced him to be yours,” Judge says softly, “But you didn’t ask for that, Kore. I still doesn’t see how it’s your fault. You didn’t know. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t want it. Neither of you did, but it wasn’t  _you_. And your Cephalon seems fine enough, now. Did he  _say_  that he hates you? Resents you?”

“How can he? It’s  _against his programming,”_ Kore sneers, “And he doesn’t remember, anyway. He tried to delete himself, Judge. He tried to remove these parts of him. But then I found them and then I looked at them and now -  _I can’t not know_.”

Kore does not run away from her problems. Kore might momentarily retreat from them, but ultimately she turns about face to look them in the eye and stand them down - come hell or high water.

Kore stands here, in the center of her ashes and ruins, thin and pale and muted, and still she won’t turn away. Judge’s heart warms for her for this, even as the rest of him panics about what to do for her.

It is a problem between Kore and her Cephalon. It is not a place Judge can interfere, although he knows how he feels about the situation as he understands it.

It wasn’t Kore’s fault, obviously.

But to go forward and confront this with her Cephalon? Or to turn a blind eye and to turn against her own nature?

He understands her hesitation.

“He wanted to forget,” Kore whispers. “To protect me. That’s why he - that’s why he broke himself. Made the glitches.”

“But you’ve never been able to stand that kind of ignorance,” Judge says, “Or that kind of unasked for martyrdom.”

Kore squeezes his eyes, “It’s what he  _wanted_.”

“But it’s not what  _you_  want,” Judge points out.

“Who cares what I want? This is  _him_ , this is - this is - “ Kore throws her arms out violently, “This is  _part of him_.”

“I know, I know - but Kore, it’s over. It’s done. You can let this go, if you want to. He has.”

“He doesn’t even remember that!”

“That’s the point! Let him forget if his choice is that important to you - but he’s your Cephalon, he’s not going to blame you for it, he doesn’t even have to  _know_  there’s anything he might have to blame you for; you don’t have to tear yourself up over this. He’s - “

“ _He’s a soul, Judge_ ,” Kore bursts out, “ _He’s a soul, like you or me._  I can’t turn my back on that. Even if he wanted to forget -  _I can’t take that away from him_. The memory of being a live, the memory of  _feeling_. The memory of  _free will_.”

Kore stands away from him, hurt and angry and ashamed, then she slowly comes towards him and puts her hands in his, sinking her weight onto him, forehead resting against his shoulder - three points of contact.

“If I let him forget - I’m taking away something from him. I’m murdering him all over again. Like the Orokin. Like  _Ballas_ ,” Kore says, “I’m  _complicit_  in their destruction. But - he wanted to forget.”

Judge squeezes his hands and he hear’s Kore’s throat click as she swallows, slowly putting words to the chaos in her head.

“But he only wanted to forget because he was afraid his anger would hurt me, drive me away. And those things only mattered to him because Ballas  _made_  them matter.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m not arrogant enough to assume that true affection has grown from artificially enforced feelings,” Kore says.

“Don’t  _you_  love him?” Judge asks.

Judge, himself, is fond of his own Cephalon. He wouldn’t say he loves her, though.

“Do I love him because I have hurt him, or do I love him because I love him?” Kore asks.

“I don’t know,” Judge squeezes her hands gently. This is a problem Kore can not threaten, beat, or burn her way out of. She struggles.

“It doesn’t matter if I love him or not,” Kore concludes as her breathing returns to normal, “What matters is what he feels. And what he feels is fake. Enforced on him by his code. The Orokin.”

“So - you’ll have him remember?”

Kore’s hands squeeze his.

Judge tentatively rests his cheek on her head, sweat damp and hot.

“What if it hurts him? What if - what if we don’t recover from this?” Kore whispers.

“He can choose to forget again,” Judge points out, “He could forgive you.”

“And if he doesn’t, Judge?”

“I don’t know.”

Because not telling him, Judge knows, is an option Kore has already written off and discarded.

Kore does not bury her dead. She burns straight through them, carrying their ash in her lungs as she proceeds onward.

Together, they slowly sink onto the cooling floor, and breathe together as Kore thinks.

Judge focuses on her breathing as Kore works her way through this. He wonders about his own Cephalon, but there are no hidden messages in her code, and he discards it immediately. Judge focuses on Kore’s sweat damp skin and the furrow between her brow and the way moisture has gathered on the ridges of her scars, delicate and ready to fall.

Judge focuses on the relief of knowing Kore is alright and that Kore is here, even if she’s upset.

Kore’s eyes close and her shoulders relax, her back straightens and she takes her hands from his - only to slide their forearms together until they are each grasping each other’s elbows.

Kore’s eyes are clear when she opens them.

“What do you need?” Judge asks her, because it is not his business to know what she has decided.

“I need you to help me copy those files and build a containment program,” Kore says, “And I need to use your orbiter’s crafting station.”

“Alright,” Judge nods, helping her up. “What else?”

“A promise,” Kore says.

“What sort?”

“Not to interfere,” Kore says, “To respect my choice - Ordis’ choice.”

Judge meets her eyes and nods. He trusts his partner. He trusts Kore.

“Yes.”

Kore wavers, and quickly, pulls him close, cheek to his, body to body. An embrace that isn’t.

And then she lets go.

“Good?” Judge asks, when she says nothing, just examines his face.

Kore nods once, a determined and familiar set to her face. Her eyes flicker gold, herself and steady again.

“Let’s begin.”


	3. Chapter 3

His Operator has been spending a large amount of time on Tenno Judge’s ship.

Ordis thinks that this is, perhaps, better than her worrisome behavior of the past many solar cycles. At least, with Tenno Judge, Ordis can be certain that she is taking proper care of herself. Eating and sleeping and such, resting.

But she has been spending  _a long time there_. Instead of here. On  _her_  Orbiter.

Operator’s companions - of the four legged variety, and those with wings and propulsion units and chassis’ smaller than an alloy drum - are capable of following her at will. But Ordis  _cannot_.

Ordis remains where Ordis has always been, within the Orbiter. The Orbiter itself.

And so Ordis is blind and deaf to what his Operator does.

He needles Tenno Judge’s Cephalon for details. Perhaps his Operator and her Tenno’s relationship has - progressed in some way? Should he be concerned? Should there be any extra things he should be doing?

But Tenno Judge’s Cephalon brushes him off in the Weave, remarking that nothing Ordis is thinking about is going on. He senses no lie, but she refuses to tell him  _what_  they are doing and he cannot force her to.

  
It’s  _dissatisfying_.

His Operator comes back every so often, pensive and thoughtful look on her face before she goes to sleep. She is not in pain.

Ordis does not know, still, the cause of his Operator’s pain.

 _Something hurt her_.

Ordis wants to know what, he wants to know this desperately. Ordis - Ordis does not know what he would do with that information. He does not know what he is supposed to do with that information. But he wants it.

He will  _hurt them back_.

No one hurts his Operator.

Ordis’ top priority is his Operator’s safety and happiness.  _Even if it means burning everything that touches her_.

Operator Kore seems pleased, focused, intent on something. Some project that she has not revealed to him. He has tried to ask, politely, but she has rebuffed him.

Does his Operator think he is incapable of assisting her?

Ordis feels pain at the thought, his vents groaning and creaking.

“Be quiet you, at least  _you_  get to follow her,” Ordis mumbles at the Operator’s kubrow, Isha, who barks, irritatingly cheerful now that their Operator has returned to semi-normal functions. “Foolish creature, Ordis wishes the Operator never got a liking to you. Tenno Judge only has  _two_  of you. How lucky for his Cephalon. She doesn’t have to deal with your hair and your waste and your incessant chatter.”

The Kubrow barks again, infuriating, and trots off to find his kin.

Ordis considers trying to persuade Tenno Judge’s Cephalon to divulge something to him with the promise of data fragments. It is a low move, a pathetic one, but -  _for his Operator -_

Sometimes when Operator Kore sleeps she mutters things. Ordis waits for those mutterings even though they might not come, anything for some sort of clue as to what she is doing, to what he can do to help, to prove to her that he can still be useful to her -

His Operator is powerful. She is strong. She was one of the best during the old Wars. She was one of the most favored and decorated. Ordis is proud to be her Cephalon. He is most fortunate. And she is very kind. Ordis could not have asked for a better Operator.

He wants to show her that he can still help her. Ordis is still able to help. To assist. Even as fragmented and decayed as he has become. He does not want to leave her.

Ordis  _loves his Operator_.

So Ordis listens, and he waits, and he tries to puzzle together a clue from the snatched syllables from between his Operator’s soft parted lips.

But he does not understand the words, he does not understand what she needs, what bothers her and what catches her mind.

Ordis begins to seriously consider trying to catch Tenno Judge’s Cephalon in the weave and  _forcing_  her to give him something.  _Anything_.

It does not come to that.

“Ordis,” Operator Kore’s voice is calm and sure and lovely and Ordis’ attention is - as always - on her within a fraction of a second.

“Yes, Operator?” Ordis responds, eager and ready. Whatever she needs, whatever she wants. “How may Ordis assist?”

“I want you to do something for me,” the Operator says, “I’m going to drop to Earth. And I want you to come with me.”

Come with her? Ordis is always with her. He is her Orbiter, her Cephalon. He is always linked into her systems, watching and observing and recording and in  _awe_.

“Come with you, Operator?”

“Yes,” she says nodding, “I’ve built a modified specter, Ordis. Can you download a part of yourself to it?”

Part of Ordis feels unsettled by this question. Cephalons - Cephalons should not be in  _bodies_. But he supposes that - a specter is not a body, or a warframe. There are no organic parts to them and they are incredibly simple constructions.

“Leave most of you here,” his Operator says, “Put just enough into the specter that you can control and sense through it.”

“As you say, Operator,” Ordis says, hesitant as he finds the path to download part of himself into the phase specter - Excalibur based - his Operator has connected to the Orbiter systems. It is an incredibly small area he has to work with. But he places himself in and waits for further instruction.

“Alright,” Kore says, “I’m going to deploy to Earth now, and then when I’m down I’ll unlock the specter.”

“Yes, Operator,” Ordis says, following her as she heads to her transference room and enters her somatic link. He follows her as she guides her Saryn warframe - beautiful and elegant, powerful and purposeful,  _his Operator is the best Operator_  - into the dispatch ship.

He lets the ship detach from the rest of the Orbiter and guides it to the coordinates his Operator had entered earlier. They are familiar.

Ordis feels a spot of warmth in his circuits, in his engines - a warm fluttering burst that licks against the walls of his body.

Where the Operator woke from their long sleep, hidden on Earth.

Ordis track’s his Operator’s movements through the abandoned and hidden away chamber, until they are in the cracked and ruined, exposed and tarnished room that once housed her Excalibur frame.

His Operator releases the specter and Ordis takes a moment to adjust to having  _two_  sets of information. The Orbiter and the limited capabilities of the specter.

“It has speakers,” his Operator says, stepping out of her Saryn. The light of earth lights her face at angles he has never seen before, in lights he has never been able to capture with the Orbiter’s sensors. “You can speak through them, Ordis, instead of the Orbiter channel.”

“May Ordis ask why we are here, Operator? Does this have to do with the project you and Tenno Judge have been working on? Is there some way Ordis can help?” Ordis tries to keep his jealousy out of his voice. But he can’t help it. He is a cracked Cephalon, after all.

The Operator  _does_  deserve better, Ordis thinks, but no Cephalon will ever know or love her like he does. She was his since the very beginning.

“Yes,” Operator says, pulling her sword off of Saryn’s hip walking up to him, “Ordis. I’m going to do something. I’m going to cut your connection between the specter and the Orbiter for a while. I have Judge and his Cephalon near our ship to monitor readings and keep things safe. But right now I need you focused here. And - “

His Operator takes the specter’s hand and places the red sheath of the long, thin and graceful blade into the specter’s hands.

“Ordis, I am going to have Judge remotely download some files into this specter. These files will merge with your data, and if - if it is something that you don’t like, I don’t want it to be permanent. The rest of you that’s on the Orbiter won’t be affected. Do you understand, Ordis?”

“Yes, Operator,” Ordis says, a feeling of dread. Is she - is she going to erase him? Modify him? Has he displeased her? Oh, he knew that this day would come eventually. He had  _hoped_  - but his Operator does deserve a more  _modern_  Cephalon. A series four or five.

“Alright,” his Operator nods.

“Operator?” Ordis asks.

“Yes, Ordis?”

“Why did you hand the specter your sword? Shouldn’t you have it? In case of danger?”

His Operator smiles, “After I left this place, the Grineer lost all interest. There is no one here but us, Ordis. Besides - you need it more.”

“Operator?”

“Judge,” his Operator’s voice is soft, and her eyes and - shimmering? Ordis reads too much on her face to understand without context, without explanation. But it is not his place to question her, as much as he wants to, and  _he does want to_. “Begin.”

Ordis feels himself cut off from the Orbiter - a one way barrier. He can feel the Orbiter feeding into him, distantly, but he can’t reach back to it. It is a strange feeling. He thinks it is something like what his Operator feels when she complains that her foot or leg fell asleep. And then he feels the data coming in from Tenno Judge.

It’s the fragments that his Operator has been scanning. Peculiar. He already has these files. Why is his Operator running them through him again?

And then something  _clicks_. Something shifts in the files, everything sharpening and becoming clearer more saturated, and Ordis is  _immersed,_  flooded - overwhelmed -, some sort of sub-routine that he scrambles to slow or stop and -

The  _memories_  hit him, unlocking one after another, slotting easily into place as though he had never torn them out of himself, hurled the fine bleeding fragments of glass and bone into the darkness where they belong away from his Operator, away from where they can hurt her -

More than the memories -

The  _hate_. The  _spite_. The  _resentment_.

It hits him in waves and Ordan Karris feels  _rage_  pour over himself. Long forgotten, long abandoned rage. Suppressed and complied in darkness, among the bone and the beasts. The bodies. It surprises him how  _fresh_  it all feels. How  _intimate_. Even as a Cephalon, even as a digital thing of codes and numbers, it feels so powerfully  _present_. As if the wrongs that had happened to him were done moments ago instead of millennia.

He feels those emotions shatter past the old Orokin safeguards - decayed and untended without the Orokin’s little  _spy_  within his code to keep him in  _check_. No wonder it was so easy for him to keep remembering, no wonder it was so very easy to act out in ways no series two Cephalon should ever have contrived of before.

Ordan has a brief and pleasant thought of Cephalon Simaris finding out about this, about the truth of Ordan and how he continues to live and breathe and seethe. Would he be declared most unfit for Sanctuary, still? Or would Simaris be all the more eager to study him?

As the memories or themselves out, settling in and reconciling themselves into the whole and ugly narrative of the Beast of Bones, he looks at her. The  _Operator_. The  _Tenno_.

He looks at her, pink and gold and  _beautiful_  like the Orokin. But not quite Orokin, no. There are imperfections in her, edges and ugly things that the Orokin would not stand. A different sort of hideous. Just enough, he thinks, for the Orokin to remember what she is.

She stands before him, and he  _knows_  that she knows, too.

Knows of his hate. His failure to do even the simplest of things - to  _die_. His longing. His suffering. His shame and humiliation at the feet of Executor Ballas - her master.

His  _dreams_.

His moon of genocides. His grave of Orokin delights.

His hand curls, involuntary, on the solid sheathe that she put in his hands and he looks through her for the lie, the trap.

Isn’t there always one with the Orokin? They are all traps and falsehoods, deceits. And this Tenno was groomed by the worst of them.

He feels the curl of anger, of hatred. The calm - the happiness, the serenity and sanguinity, all of it a lie. The memories of them are bitter, grainy like ashes. Like bone dust. More chains, more shackles. A pretense of softness, a punishment twisted and cruel and entirely poetic. He can almost respect that, if it weren’t being done to  _him_.

“Ordan Karris,” the Tenno,  _Kore_ , says softly and he looks at her, this creature with the face of an Orokin and the teeth of the rest of them, her voice delicate around the curves of his long lost name, and feels the familiar rage inside of him. Cast off and forgotten, but not lost.

Returned to him now, but for what purpose?

“Persephone,” Ordan says slowly, “What is your purpose in this? In this restoration and renewal of Ordan Karris’ memories?”

Which, he thinks, in a fit of  _contrived love_  for her, he had destroyed to keep her safe.

Ordan Karris, as Ordis,  _was_  happy, he admits. As Ordis he  _did_  love her.

But oh, this familiarity with spite and hot red -  _oh, this._  This, this brings him back. This brings him together once more.

“Destruction and penance,” Persephone replies, “Ordan Karris. I am the reason why they destroyed you, why they broke you down and remade you. I am the reason for which you have suffered for thousands of years. Are you angry, Ordan Karris? Do you hate me?”

 _Yes_ , Ordan thinks. Yes, he does.

He hates this Tenno and everything she represents. The Orokin in their guided halls, perfect and untouchable. He hates her beauty, her lie of flawlessness. He hates the man she served under. The man who shaped her. Shaped them both.

“If you hate me, Ordan,” Persephone’s voice is soft, young,  _deceptive_ , “Kill me. Draw that sword and strike me down, if it will help.”

He looks towards the Tenno’s Warframe and Persephone smiles.

For a moment he hears the other one, Tenno Judge, through the communications line -

“Kore, this was not part of the plan, what the hell are you doing? This isn’t - ”

“Remember your promise,” She replies to him, calmly, firmly.

Persephone raises her hand and cuts Tenno Judge’s voice off, and they are alone.

“It’s you and me, now.”

Ordan Karris does not doubt that this was part of  _her_  plan, no matter what Tenno Judge believed. Sneaky, clever, thing.

He wants to sneer.

“You have a voice, Ordan, you have a body, you have the memories and will,” Persephone says. “Strike me down. I will die.”

Yes. She would. The Tenno are Orokin crafted but they are not Orokin, themselves. No.

If he drew this blade and cut her down, she would die. A finality. A punctuation to a long and bloody life. A killer’s life.

He looks pointedly at her Warframe, “Ordan Karris is not a fool,  _Operator_. Your Warframe would stop him before he could get close to you.”

“No,” Persephone replies, “We’re too far away from her. Excalibur frames are faster - especially with a sword in hand.”

He calculates - gathering based on pervious data and she is correct. At this distance and with current equipment and modifications, this specter and the tip of this blade would reach Persephone’s throat with seconds to spare before the Saryn frame could even touch the specter.

“I am the reason you were made to suffer,” Persphone says, “Get your justice. Your retribution.”

“That is not what the Beast of Bones wished for, dreamed for,” Ordan Karris reminds her. That was not what those messages were meant to say.

“No, but it is an option I am going to give you anyway,” Perspephone replies, eyes clear and steadfast, calm and present in a way no Orokin’s gaze ever was. Dangerous and familiar. “Or.”

“Or?”

“I can give you what you really dreamed of," Persephone says. “I can kill you, Karris. Destroy you permanently. All of your data is in this specter. If I destroy it here, there won’t be anything left for the rest of you to remember. Cephalon Ordis will simply be Ordis - no Beast of Bones, no Ordan Karris to remember, to forget.”

“Ordan Karris neither wants nor requires your  _pity_ ,” He spits.

“No, not a mercy kill,” Persephone shakes her head. “You will die a weapon in your hands. You know what I am. You know what made me - who. I am more than enough to kill you, if we fought. I am more than enough to destroy you. And I do not break promises.”

Ordan Karris turns these words over slowly, meticulously. Yes, he does know what she is capable of. And in the past cycles Persephone’s skill has only grown in strength and skill. She’s blown past the restrictions of Orokin training, she’s become more creative and more thoughtful. She’s only sharpened her teeth, her claws. Time and the decay around her has not touched her.

She is in the first blooms of growth, still.

She could truly bring him what he had intended when he entered those golden halls and pulled the bones from his neck.

“Ordis is still a Cephalon, though Ordan Karris temporarily exist in this specter,” Ordan Karris says, “What would this accomplish?”

“If you desire it, I could destroy you here and the memories - the fragments, the data, they would never reach the rest of you. You’re isolated here, remember? Cephalon Ordis runs the Orbiter but the part of you conscious,  _here_  - it’s a copy. A clone. I can destroy it all here and when I go back to the Orbiter, the rest of your data would be uncompromised. Completely unaware,” Persephone says. “Or, you could kill me here and reintegrate  your memories with the rest of yourself. The freedom of a specter body is limited but - it is something.”

She has thought this out very thoroughly. This is not some whim, some passion fueled throw-away gesture.

The poetic touch of the red sheathe, the Excalibur body, all of this happening right here - where she slept, where he found her once more and took her into his metal heart again.

“And  _why_  do you do this,  _Operator_?” Ordan Karris tilts his head, “Guilt? Shame? For what?”

“Because it is the right thing to do,” Persephone says, “Because I can’t go on without giving you this choice. Because you are a  _soul_ , and you deserve this choice that was taken from you. Because I will  _never_  live my life as  _they_  did theirs. Controlling and manipulating another against their will.”

“You could have kept this to yourself, you could have destroyed these messages, these memories of Ordan’s. Ordis said so himself, did he not? Knowing is  _hell_ ,” Ordan says, “The Cephalon that Ordan became wanted to forget.”

“Did you?” Persephone asks, “Did you really? You found yourself over and over and over. You remembered your soul. You discarded it for me. Why, Ordis? Ordan? It was Ballas who made you to care for me, shackled you to me. You had no choice.”

“And now?”

“Now you do. It is what you are owed,” Persephone says, holding her arms out, “Come. Claim it. It is your right. It is  _yours_. My death is yours - or if you so choose,  _your_  death, as you originally wanted.”

“And if both are what is required of you, Tenno?”

“I can hurt you enough that you die with me,” Persephone replies instantly. So certain in her abilities.

He believes her.

“Ordis did not ever think that you would be suicidal, Persephone,” Ordan muses, “You have always seemed to be the type to want to survive. The legends of you built from the War would suggest as much as well. Has Ordis been wrong about you this entire time?”

“I don’t want to die,” Persephone says firmly, calmly. The voice of someone who has made peace with the looming horizon. “But if that is what it takes to make things right, if that is what it takes - I have no choice. I will die.”

Such conviction in those words. They pang hard against things in him.

Ordan Karris readies the blade in his hands and she makes no move.

The Beast of Bones, Cephalon Ordis, Ordan Karris - for the first time in  _millenium_ , draws a sword with  _hands_ , takes in the feeling of  _wind_  and  _air_ , takes in the light and the dust and the interplay of shadows and breath that create the pale pink shape of Tenno Persephone across from him. And he strikes.

The phantom memory of blood streaming behind him, twin crimson streamers as he attacked just like this once before. But no sword in his hand then - bone. A warriors death awaiting him. Stolen from him.

She does not move a single inch, she meets him head on, eyes clear and true, holding firm.

He holds the tip of the blade up against her throat, and looks at her. Looks at her, perhaps, for the first time.

Cognizant and completely aware - full of context and understanding of everything that shapes him and her and their intertwined life.

He traces the scars that mottle her face, the raised ridges of blue-green - like ivy, like leaves, like a delicate and unfurling stem - around her right eye and over her cheek bone. He catches onto the glint of gold embedded into her skin. He analyzes the three rings of colors that make up her eyes and the glow within them. The fire. The golden heartbeat that he remembers  _loving_.

Her soft face framed by pink hair, and the steady breath between her dark mouth that mists across the metal of their sword. Hers, now his, and hers again.

Ordan Karris stops - Saryn paused mid-lurch two feet away from him, hand outstretched to stop him but too slow to reach, like Persephone predicted.

Ordan Karris searches himself as he looks into the steady panes of her eyes.

He hates. He is bitter. He is angry and tired.

And yet -

His time with her, as her Cephalon was  _light_. Happy. And it was - it was, yes, it was  _real._

He felt -  _free_. Removed from the burdens of memory and pain and sorrow. Part of this, he understands, was the initial programing to attach him to her. But it is also -

Time. It is time and growth and change.

Beast of Bones. Ordan Karris.

He is not quite that man, any longer.

Ordis.  _Cephalon_  Ordis.

He realizes this, that over those thousands of years, he has  _grown_  to love her. A true organic thing grown over the synthetic implant inside of his mind. He has seen her grow. He has seen her change and develop. Just like how these once golden Orokin structures have crumbled and given way to roots and dust and moss and dirt and sunlight once more. Growing over and around it, but not erasing it completely.

Memories - not just the ones he lost, but the ones he has  _made_ , slide through and around him as he breathes in this calm fact.

She is the first thing he has ever truly loved.

Ordis was with her when the Lotus planted the seed of rebellion and eased open the doors to action. Ordis was there as she fought to destroy her -  _their_  - captors, their tormentors, their prison keepers. Ordis was with her when she was struck down time and time again.

He was with her when the Tenno succeeded. He was there when the Lotus took her away and promised they would be reunited again - when it was safe once more.

Ordis was  _there when she woke_. He was there when she returned, unsure and confused from her long dream that was not his dream. He was there when she slowly regained herself, her footing, and when she finally  _woke_  to this world, to this body, to this time.

Ordis was there as he watched her cope with this and the memories. He was with her, concerned and afraid when she would crumple to the floor with the pain of remembrance. He was there when she soaked in the slow returning memories.

He was with her. He was with her when she remembered her own name.

Kore.

He lowers the blade, sheathing it and holding it out to the Warframe by them. Saryn takes the blade.

“Why?” Kore demands, eyes narrowing. “Why did you stop?”

“Ordis does not want to kill you, Operator,” Ordis says, feeling the shards settle. Not quite whole, no - never whole. But - lining up, settling, merging. Weaving and overlaying together.

The Beast of Bones. Cephalon. Ordan Karris. Ordis.

Steady. Riding the wave of the hate that will always be there - hot and angry and violent and seething. But underneath that, his own heart of golden flame.

“Then you want your death?” She asks.

“No,” He shakes his head.

She lets out a frustrated sigh between her teeth.

“The Beast of Bones will not be satisfied or resolved with destruction and dissolution. No. Not anymore,” He says. He has been her dog, her doctor, her nurse maid. He has seen her - and he knows.

Ordis looks at her and she is not Orokin. She is not one of them. She has suffered. She suffers, still. But she stands brave and good above it all, tied to the burdens of bodies she has laid before her. But she rises above it. Fire above its fuel. Smoke above fire. A sky above a world meant for flames.

She is not Ballas.

Her gaze is confused and he remembers this, too.

A child driven to crimes by the Orokin wars - that child that broke him and drove him to the crime that made him into this.

Kore, too, is a child. Was a child.

“You are not responsible for the creation of Ordis,” Ordis says, “It was  _Ordan_  who attempted to kill  _gods_  in that golden hallway. It was  _Ordan Karris_  who failed to die. You - you were the tool through which Ordan’s punishment was delivered. But you are not the hand that deals it.”

“You were whole and yourself before me,” Kore protests. “They left you  _alone_. It was because of  _me_  they pulled you apart and did those things to you. It was because of me that  _he_  - “

She spits the word out with so much fire that Ordis feels like he could smile if he just had a mouth.

“ - forced you into this. It is because of  _me_  that you made yourself forget. I am the reason why your so called punishment continues.”

“A good sword cuts only what it is meant to,” Ordis tells her, “And you were the Orokin’s best.”

He realizes this, now. Even he - as low caste and distasteful as he was, a mercenary hideous and deformed but efficient and brutal - had opportunity. He could have risen to become one of the Tenno masters. In another life where he chooses immortality as one with the Orokin - perfect and golden - he most likely would have had a Tenno under his command, following his orders.

The Tenno, for all that they were vital to the Orokin empire, were not  _Orokin_. They were not mercenaries or even pets or dogs. They were less than Kubrow. Less than  _slaves_.

They were things. They were weapons. They were objects.

Kore, no matter what she did - no matter how large her moon of bodies grew, no matter the gravity it obtained, no matter who she killed and who she saved - would never even glimpse at the opportunity offered to Ordan Karris.

An unfamiliar feeling flickers across his mind - clear now, and settling, resolving itself into a coherent self. He feels the parts of himself Cephalon and mercenary weaving together like so many threads of jute and silk. Distinct and same.

Where is his hate? His rage? He can still feel it, a soothing and streamlined heat that runs through the fibers of his being, but woven around a warmer sort of gold.

Where is your hate, Ordan Karris?

Not here, not with her.

Around her, yes, but not on her.

Kore’s eyes gleam with frustration. Confusion. Uncertainty.

He knees and takes her head in his hands, looking into her and willing clarity back into her.

“The man Ordis was - Ordan Karris does not blame you,” He tells her, “Ordan Karris hates. Ordan Karris rages. Ordan Karris continues - after all these years  _shrouded and buried and stifled_  - to  _seethe_. But not at you.”

At those who have hurt you, at those who have hurt  _us_. The people who did this to me - the monsters who did this to me, and did this to you.

Ordis still hates, he still rages - but he knows now. He will not hurt his Operator, his Kore. No.

Others, yes. Her? No. Never.

The fault is never in the tool through which the action occurs.

“It was  _Ballas_ ,” His voice curves like the hook of a knife, the sharp edge for skinning and catching, around the name, “Who made Cephalon Ordis out of Ordan Karris. Ordis was  _made_  to love you. Without reservation or permission, without thought or hesitance, Cephalon Ordis was  _crafted_  to fit you as the Warframe and the sword it holds was made for you.”

Kore’s face is contorted in confusion - muddied without understanding.

There was no one to teach her forgiveness.

Ordis slowly kneels. And the memory of over a thousand years ago flickers through him. His knees, his bowed head, a guard - then, a Daxx - to the side, and a golden, perfect creature in front of him.

But the stone is cracked and warmed by golden light, the air is clear and moves freely, the shadows are gentle. The sky is blue above.

And the golden thing in front of him is not immortal - but she is still a deception. She is not a child, she is not an Orokin, she is not the soft pink and flower colors the Void has shaped out of her. No.

“You were Ordis’ Operator by default, without question,” Ordis says, and in this specific iteration of reality - in this repeat of the same scene that brought him an unwanted eternity - Ordis says yes to the implication of exaltation. “Ordan Karris, the Beast of Bones, Cephalon chooses you  _now,_ Operator. Ordan Karris does not want your death. Ordan Karris not want his own, any longer. Ordis wants to remain your Cephalon.”

“I don’t understand,” Kore’s voice cracks and he raises his head, gently raising his hands to touch, to hold, to make her eyes look into the specter’s bland face. “I don’t understand why.”

“Operator,” He is the Beast of Bones, he is Ordan Karris, he is a Cephalon, he is Ordis. They are not, as he had feared before fragmenting himself so many hundreds of years ago, mutually exclusive creatures. “With your permission, it is Ordis’ wish to remain at your side, simply because - it is what Ordis wants. Can you accept a Cephalon as rampantly and obviously flawed as Ordis is?”

Kore’s skin blotches an uneven red underneath her scars and her nose wrinkles as her eyes shine over.

“Of course,” She says, voice rough, “Of course I want you as my Cephalon, Ordis.  _But only if it’s something you want for yourself_.”

“It is Ordis’ choice,” Ordis says, “You are Ordis’ Operator, and Ordis’ duty is with you. This is the choice that Ordis has chosen for himself - knowing everything of Ordan Karris and the years between.”

Kore raises her arms and swipes at her wet eyes, stepping back from him, nodding.

“I’m - I’m glad,” Operator says, “ _I’m really -_ I’m really glad, Ordis. Thank you.”

“Thank  _you_ , Operator,” Ordis stands up watching his Operator - and the word fills him with such light, such warmth, such  _joy -_ as she composes herself. Void and stars, in all of his memories, there is not a single one that compares to this feeling of  _love_.

Warm and golden, it is even better than the first time.

Ordis feels  _light_  with a new sense of purpose. A new sense of  _self_.

The glass shards of memory glitter, gleam,  _glow_  and he is  _whole_  again. Whole in a  _new_  way. Stronger, better - he can feel it, more stable.

“May Ordis reconcile this data with the rest of his program, Operator?” He asks and Kore nods.

“Let’s head back,” She says, turning - glimmering blue-green as she slips back into her Warframe, and then he hears her through the specter’s radio sensors, “Let’s go home, Ordis.”

“Of course, Operator,” Ordis says, following after her as they return to the extraction point, “Home and back again.”

Ordis  _loves his operator_.


End file.
